Taming Israel's Jewish Extremists

When I was young, my family often split into two camps on Jewish issues: the contingent that said, “As long as the goyim aren’t killing us, leave well enough alone” and the proponents of the “better act now or things will get worse” approach.

Today, much of the Jewish community is similarly divided on how our new president should address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first group wants Barack Obama to keep hands off. It’s a hopeless quagmire, they say; presidents who’ve messed with the process have come up empty-handed and made America look ineffectual. Opening this can of worms could sully Obama’s image as a healer and problem-solver and could even imperil his domestic agenda.

What’s to be gained from peace talks anyway? U.S.-brokered negotiations would put pressure on Israel to make concessions. There’s no credible partner on the other side. The “security barrier” has foiled Palestinian terrorists so Israelis feel safe. Obama shouldn’t meddle in Israeli affairs, except to squelch Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Otherwise, the status quo is just fine.

But it’s not fine at all. In fact, the status quo is morally corrosive and politically explosive. With each passing day of inertia on the peace process, Israeli extremists’ brazen sense of entitlement ripens. When Jews feel free to flout the law, ignore Israel’s High Court of Justice, attack anyone who disagrees with them and assault the soldiers of their country, “leave well enough alone” is not a viable option.

Flagrant violations of the rule of law and the basic social contract make the internal threat to Israel’s survival as frightening as the external one. Several events show just how bad things have gotten. Last September, Ze’ev Sternhell, the 73-year old Holocaust survivor, historian, winner of this year’s Israel Prize, dovish critic of settlements and a frequent target of death threats from the extreme right, was wounded when a pipe bomb exploded outside his front door in Jerusalem. Flyers found in the street near his house offered a reward of a million shekels to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now.

The following month, graffiti on a Tel Aviv wall warned, “Yariv (the pig), your end is near.” The target was Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now’s leader in Israel, who has previously received death threats.

Finally, militant settlers—emboldened by police who crack down hard on Arab violence but seem reluctant to arrest Jews—have expanded their illegal claims on the land and ratcheted up the violence to get their way. Last fall, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that settlers in Hebron had to evacuate a Palestinian home they’d seized and squatted in since March 2007. They refused. When the Israeli Defense Forces finally evicted them this December, the settlers went on a rampage, vandalized Palestinian property, shot two Palestinians outside their home, burned down olive groves and desecrated a mosque. They also attacked Israeli soldiers, punching, spitting, throwing rocks at them, even hurling acid in one soldier’s face.

The mayhem was condemned by Prime? Minister Ehud Olmert as “a pogrom.” The Israeli daily Ha’aretz called it “Jewish terrorism.” The rioters weren’t just indulging their inner Hun, they were sending a message to the Israeli people: “This is the price you’ll pay if you try another Gaza withdrawal. If we can create this kind of havoc after being removed from one house in Hebron, imagine what we’ll do if you try to evict us from the rest of the West Bank.”

For years, right-wing hooliganism has shamed Israel and the conscience of ethical Jews everywhere. Now the settlers’ blatant defiance of the IDF constitutes a threat to national security and the physical safety of Israeli citizens. Yuval Diskin, chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, recently told the cabinet that settler groups plan to expand the use of violence inside the Green Line.

The Israeli government must crack down hard on seditious acts regardless of the ideology or identity of their perpetrators. It is not enough to periodically dismantle an illegal settlement or arrest a few hundred thuggish troublemakers. They must mount a full-court press toward the endgame everyone knows is inevitable—two states for two peoples—and make clear to the world that neither Arab nor Jewish terrorism will alter that inevitability.

An opinion poll conducted monthly by Tel Aviv University consistently shows a clear majority of the Israel public wants the U.S. to take an active role in advancing the peace process. Americans concerned about Israel’s soul and security—among them former Ambassadors Dennis Ross, Daniel Kurtzer and Sam Lewis, rank and file members of J Street, the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now—are urging President Obama to “act now before things get worse.”

Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be a priority in Obama’s first term. He should use his considerable international prestige to jump-start the diplomatic gears immediately by naming a high-level peace envoy (I nominate Bill Clinton) as well as getting personally involved in the negotiations. He must hold Israel to its promise to freeze settlement-building and expansion and to evacuate illegal hilltop outposts.

There is no time to waste. After the settlers’ attacks in Hebron, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “We are only a hair’s breath from utter anarchy.” Nothing less than the survival of civil society and the fundamental democratic ethos of the Jewish state is at stake.